


Hotel California

by J3 (CaseMatthews)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive Benny, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Dark Benny Lafitte, Domestic Violence, Emotional Manipulation, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Rape, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 16:09:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2627894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaseMatthews/pseuds/J3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If someone had told an eighteen year old Dean Winchester that in the space of four years he’d become world famous, perform with freaking Foo Fighters and put a guilty man in prison, he’d have lifted his eyebrows and calmly escorted them back to the nuthouse where they belong.</p><p>And if anyone had told him he'd be beaten and raped within an inch of his life almost every day of the week, he's sure he wouldn't have believed them either.</p><p>Maybe he should really start listening to people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hotel California

**Author's Note:**

> Benny is a bad, bad alpha in this fic, and just for reference, I love the dude in the show. But for the purpose of fiction, he abuses and hurts Dean really badly, and Cas/Dean doesn't appear for a few chapters yet.

**_Now…_ **

Dean waits with laboured breath as the crewmen set up the rest of the equipment in his living room. He can’t help feeling violated; not with this amount of people in his own, new, awesome house, dragging up memories that don’t belong here.  And he's pretty sure he’d be about ready to puke all over them if Castiel’s warm presence wasn’t those stupidly important mere metres away, if he wasn’t talking politely to the Tessa lady and saving Dean the added trouble. He’s not close enough, but the shirt he let Dean borrow smells of him and that’s nice. Dean sucks in an ocean scented breath and just waits.

He nearly jumps from his skin when a heavy hand claps to his shoulder.

“Sorry, man,” Sam says, extending a timid smile as he sits beside him, his hand moulding into Dean’s tense muscle. “You okay?”

Dean nods and rolls his eyes, offering his baby brother an inch of normalcy before he watches Dean come apart on screen. Again. Jesus.

“I’m awesome,” he huffs, widening his eyes for good measure. “You?”

Sam sits down beside him on the window bench, keeping his hand stationary on the totally-not-trembling muscle which Dean is pathetically grateful for and his alpha brother knows it.

He hates feeling like this. Back then, back with Benny looming, the feeling had been second place – the knowledge of how useless he is. But now, with Cas around and Sam back, with his friends and a real life he’s allowed to actually _live_ , this stupid, pathetic, useless niggle deep in his chest makes him want to freak out. He feels _useless_. And he fucking hates it.

Sam huffs out a sigh. “I’m fine, Dean,” he says, giving Dean the side eye and a tiny little smile. Dean ignores it. “But look on the bright side, man, this can’t be any worse than the trial, right? At least the bastard’s not staring you in the face, I guess.”

Dean’s getting some real exercise in of his eye muscles today. “Sure, just millions of people. That hate me. You know, for fans, they sure do complain a lot.”

Sam laughs lightly, “You’ve been reading the magazines again, haven’t you?”

Dean shrugs in defence and grumbles, “No. I was watching YouTube videos on Cas’ computer and an ad came up for…I dunno, some gossip channel. What was I supposed to do, ignore my own face?”

“Yeah, actually.” The air turns serious again and Dean cringes. Ugh. They should just never talk about serious stuff. Like, ever. “Look, Dean, this is just current news, I swear to God, it’ll blow over soon.”

“Sure, an interview’s gonna help that _right_ along,” Dean says, pumping his fist in mock enthusiasm. “This isn’t even news, for God’s sake, tons of other crap’s going on in the world, why can’t they focus on that? Like war and famine and rape or whatever…”

The alpha at his shoulder just gives him his world class bitch face and it’s apparently his turn to roll his eyes. Dean just grumbles and hides his head in his hands with a hissed out “ _Fuck_ ” that makes some sound guy across the room flinch. Dean jerks his head in apology and cringes back into his palm.

“Just fucking kill me, please,” he does not whine. Definitely not a whine.

“Why are we killing Dean?” says a deep voice – Dean nearly cracks his neck jolting his gaze up to two glowing azure orbs, unruly hair and a kind smile. He shuffles over and makes room for the alpha, who simply, albeit kindly, waves the somewhat desperate gesture off. “No, it’s alright, you’ll be shooting in a minute.”

“Cas, _sit down_ ,” Dean growls, patting the white wood beside him with a harder hand than any sane omega would.

Castiel smiles at him and sits obediently closer than he has to, offering Dean’s jolting knee a quick squeeze to calm it into submission. It doesn’t work.

“So, killing Dean?” he says.

Sam laughs and wraps his gigantic orang-utan arm over Dean’s shoulders, drawing him against his side. Now he feels pathetic _and_ childish, score one for Dean. He doesn’t shove his brother off though, that would be mean and although he’s not showing it, Sam’s worried too. Dean couldn’t be so cruel, of course.

“Did you know he’s been looking at gossip videos on YouTube?” Sam asks, his tone a warning but kept carefully conversational, keeping everything safe and pleasant, urging the waters to calm before the fucking _monsoon_.

Cas lifts an eyebrow at him, Dean looks back to his suddenly very interesting fingers. “No I didn’t. What did they say?”

Dean growls deep in his throat. “Apparently there’s a very riveting poll going over who’s right or wrong. Neck and neck so far – the hoe presenting it seemed to think I was overreacting, as if being raped and beaten could be something you could _overreact_ about, stupid old--”

“Woah there, cowboy,” Sam says, his smile forced, his fingers sharp digging into Dean’s bicep. “Don’t get worked up over that crap now, Dean, it’s not worth it. Besides, that’s why you’re doing the interview, right? Set the record straight, let the people know what really happened.”

Dean huffs. “That makes it sound like I give a crap what they think.”

His brother blinks. “But you do.”

“Shut _up_ , Sammy, they don’t need to know that.”

“It shows you care about what your fans think, Dean, and that’s a good thing.” Castiel takes his hand and rubs a thumb over the back of it. “Plus, it shows you’re not controlled by him anymore. You can think for yourself now.”

“Even though I’m quitting on them.”

Castiel brings the hand up and presses his chapped lips to the skin, smiling at him over the top. “You’re not quitting. You’re taking an indeterminable break to sort your life back out. If they’re truly your fans…or human beings at all, then they should afford you that. If not, they’re going to hell and you don’t need to worry about them anyway.”

Dean smiles an incredulous little smile before huffing out whatever air’s left in his lungs and slumping into himself, tilting his head to rest against his brother’s arm.

If someone had told an eighteen year old Dean Winchester that in the space of four years he’d become world famous, perform with freaking Foo Fighters and put a guilty man in prison, he’d have lifted his eyebrows and calmly escorted them back to the nuthouse where they belong. How the hell is this even his life?

“This time tomorrow you’ll be eating pancakes out by the pool, I promise you, okay? Everything’s going to be fine.” Cas pushes a smooth press of lips (Dean won’t call it a kiss unless he’s totally sure) against his temple as he stands to move off, his hand running over Dean’s hair. “We’ll be right here, Dean, I swear. We’re not going anywhere.”

Dean nods and sighs again, standing up himself when he notices Becky waving him over. Sam hugs him first— a big bear hug he’s swallowed into, limbs wrapped around Dean’s neck like he’s trying to stick there and never move off. Castiel’s hug is slightly more gentle, more tentative and careful—but not so bad it’s as though he’s worried Dean might break. It’s soothing, more than anything really, and Dean wants to stay in the smooth grip for as long as he can.

But he nods goodbye to both of them and walks over to his living room— past the open kitchen and through the wide open door to where the cameras are all set. He sits where he’s told and waits obediently while they mess with his makeup (never get used to this) and fluff up his collar, directing him this way and that. He figures he should probably listen but given the number of times he’s actually had to do interviews like this one, he also figures he can get away with it.

He smiles when Bela Talbot sits down opposite him in the other conveniently placed armchair and he shakes her hand when it’s offered. He’s already bored of the masquerade and the camera isn’t even rolling.

He catches Sam’s eye across the room, almost hidden behind a light, but not quite. The alpha smiles and waves lightly, looping his arm over Jess’ shoulder when she comes to stand with him.

Dean likes Jess, it’s totally not like he doesn’t. But she’s already seen him in his shittiest shape, she doesn’t need to watch him recount it all. Then again, she can catch the exclusive on CNN Thursday night, so what’s the difference? Fucking Jesus crap, he can’t do this…

“…and then we’ll just move right on to Benny. Is that alright?” Bela asks, Dean nods because he wasn’t listening but he doesn’t care either way. Benny’s what this whole thing’s about, right? Talking about anything else just seems to be a waste of time to him. “Well, you know how this works, right? You get final say over what goes in the final cut, if you don’t like an answer we can do it over again. I would try to avoid that though, sometimes it seems less genuine if we have to re-do.”

“I’ll just…tell it, I guess. Put whatever you want in, I’m an open book,” he says, fiddling with the hem of Castiel’s shirt.

“Of course,” she says. She’s pretty, Dean thinks—he used to watch her talk show when he couldn’t sleep and he didn’t want to disturb Benny. It’s either poetic or downright creepy that she’s the one to do this.

“We’re ready when you are,” someone calls from behind a camera, the red light flickers on and he turns back to Bela with a stage smile he’s perfected over the years.

“Hello, Dean,” she says, her British accent strengthening now that the mic’s close by. “We haven’t spoken in a while, how are you?”

They’re going down the casual route then. Awesome.

“Yeah, I’m, uh,” he starts, scrubbing at the back of his head with one hand and huffing out an incredulous little laugh. “I’m awesome.”

**Author's Note:**

> Leeeet me know if you're interested in a continuation :) if you liked it, hated it, etc.


End file.
